1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a forward error correction (FEC) encoding/decoding method and apparatus, a digital broadcasting reception apparatus, and a decoding method thereof; and, more particularly, to a packet-level FEC encoding/decoding method and apparatus, and a digital broadcasting reception apparatus, and a decoding method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
At present, the ATSC standard used in the United States and the DVB-Terrestrial (DVB-T) standard used in the Europe are the representative terrestrial DTV standard which is dominant in the worldwide DTV markets. The ATSC standard and the DVB standard have evolved in different ways.
The terrestrial DTV standardization for mobile broadcasting and next generation broadcasting service first began to proceed in the DVB side. As a result, the DVB-Handheld (DVB-H) standard and the DVB-2nd Generation Terrestrial (DVB-T2) standard were drafted in 2004 and 2008, respectively. Also, the standardization of DVB-NGH, which is the next generation standard of DVB-H, is in progress. During this process, the compatibility with the existing DVB-T and the DVBH standards was daringly abandoned. Thus, the remarkable technical advance becomes possible but the existing broadcasting equipment and receiver must be completely replaced for the introduction of the DVB-T2 or DVB-NGH service.
Meanwhile, after a long discussion, the ATSC Mobile DTV standard guaranteeing the compatibility with the existing ATSC standard was established in 2009 and its commercialization is in progress. Although the ATSC considers the evolution such as high transmission efficiency for next generation broadcasting service, it preferentially considers the compatibility with the existing broadcasting equipment and receiver.
The ATSC is the standardization organization for terrestrial digital TV broadcasting standard of North America. The terrestrial DTV broadcasting signal transmission standard (Document No. A/53) of the ATSC based on the VSB modulation technology, which is one of single carrier modulation scheme, was established in 1995, and the mobile DTV broadcasting signal transmission standard (Document No. A/153) was established in 2009. Also, the ATSC Planning Committee (PC)-4 is in the process of developing ATSC 2.0 for the next generation terrestrial broadcasting standardization. The ATSC 2.0 includes ATSC-Mobile/Handheld (ATSC-M/H) which guarantees the mobility. The ATSC 2.0 is being developed so that the service having the higher quality than the existing service can be provided through the same frequency channel within the range at which the existing ATSC is not influenced.